Because balance is overrated.
24 Jun 2023 - XSYS Team
This story starts with you. You and a door.
[BGM: Prelude (#5 thirsty - Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion)]
Maybe it’s a door you go through every day. Maybe it’s one that isn’t supposed to be there, in a style that stands out. Maybe it’s one you don’t even look twice at, blazing through and slamming it shut with someone else hot on your heels.
When you touch the door–turned the doorknob, entered the code on the panel, swung the heavy iron knocker–it shocks the absolute hell out of you, making your hand jolt back.
Then, the door slides open on its own. Beyond lies a night sky full of sparkling stars, and endless rolling dunes of gold-white sand, impossibly vast.
And for whatever reason–curiosity, frustration, terror–you step through.
Your feet sink into the sand, and the door swings-slides-latches shut behind you. There’s nothing but dust and sand as far as you can see, save for the monument at your feet: a ring of doors, their bases buried in the sand, around a massive brass-colored gear. Each door has intricate engravings– maybe artistic, maybe language, maybe both.
Eventually, the doors and gear start to rotate in opposite directions, the rumble of machinery more an earthquake than a sound. And when it grinds back to a halt, one of the doors swings open, revealing an entirely new place beyond.
[BGM: Wide-Open Sky, Wide-Open Sea ~ Blue Arcadia: Wave Street (Show Me - Trey Frey)]
On one side, towering peach-white buildings have been splashed with colorful murals. On the other, a sizable amount of construction floats out on a crystal-blue bay, little workshops extending far out on the water atop networked piers.
The streets are packed with cheering mechanical bodies already bumping and jostling you, laughing, repainting their panels, sharing exotic food without care for money. Every body is different– spider legs, jet boosters, you think one’s designed after the shape of an animal you’ve never seen.
But someone approaches you.
Maybe it’s a cheerful heavy-armored synth in the middle of the day, after sweeping you safely out of the way of a parade float, concerned for you. Maybe it’s late into the night, a sleek angular synth stepping out of the darkness and offering not a threat, but a genuine “hey, you lost?” Or maybe you track the place down yourself, after hearing nobody else knows what to do with a new arrival.
“That’s weird. But Polaris oughta know what to do!”
[BGM: You’ll Always Find Your Way Home ~ Blue Arcadia: Polaris (Wandering Soul - .hack//Versus)]
Even in a city of loud colors and bespoke designs, Polaris manages to stand out: a swirl of strips of steel ribbon coiled around a tight core. A masked figure with a stern stance meets you outside, and walks you around to a building to the side, shorter and more hastily constructed, but with a similar aesthetic.
Your head’s swimming with the details, but they introduce themselves as Marlow. Polaris is apparently the decision-making organization that forms the de-facto government of the city, and you’re not the first. You’re issued a sparse-but-functional room and an ID on a translucent card with only a few questions, and left to spend the days however suits you: research at Polaris, aimless wandering, joining synths on their creative pursuits, whatever.
It’s a few days later when an enthusiastic synth comes through, slipping fliers under all the doors, advertising the opening of an arena, and seeking adventurous aspiring battlers to showboat to the entire city.
Maybe it’s just something to do, while you wait for Polaris to figure out a way back. Maybe it’s to taste the strange delights of this new world.
But for whatever reason… with that locker room door in front of you… you step through.